


Perceforest

by polandspringz



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Glitchy Text, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY), Volume 8 Episode 7 Spoilers, theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polandspringz/pseuds/polandspringz
Summary: After Penny crash lands at the Schnee manor, Watts' work on her finally shows itself. After an all out battle, Ruby is left to process the weight of her own actions, and Weiss helps her through it.
Relationships: Penny Polendina & Ruby Rose, Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Perceforest

**Author's Note:**

> I finished the new episode and immediately in the middle of talking about it felt the need to write this fic. I'm in the middle of finals week, so I rushed through it a bit, so I apologize for any mistakes.

_“Ruby! You have ṯ̵͆͒͛ọ̷̧̯̠͋-̶̱̗̰͛͋̔ͅ ̴̬̒Ȋ̸̬͈̠͖̺ ̸͚̞̣̭̳̎̓͒d̷̘͉̂̚o̵̟̖͕̘̝͛n̵̨̧͔̓̈́̔̈́͜͝’̶̝̔͝t̶̞̳̬̯͗͒̒͂ ̷͍͎͕̠̂w̵̨͍̻̹̺͛̏́̎ạ̸͓̱̹̎n̵̨̘͒͐̀͠t̸̡̽ ̶͔̈́̏̕t̵̗͖̋͐o̴͈̊̏̐͊-̵̨̙̤̠̐̃̓̅̔ ̷̫̟͊͂I don’t want to **hurt anyone anymore**!”  
  
_

“-Ruby.”

The dark haired girl flinched and slowly stopped in her ministrations combing through the matted and burned locks. Each strand of orange hair was meticulously placed, looking as real as the head of any other human girl, normally combed and curled to perfection. Back when she had first met Penny and she had shorter hair, Ruby had imagined her sitting at a vanity for hours, brushing through it and styling it perfectly as she had seen Weiss do each morning in the bathroom before classes. Now though, up close, Ruby could see and _feel_ that the hair was actually a very flexible synthetic material. Heat resistant and insanely durable, no doubt. Just like the rest of Penny had been built, but that just meant the fire that burned her up as she fell from the sky burned so hot that it melted even-

_“Ruby,_ ” The chiding voice softened and a hand folded over Ruby’s arm, “Let’s trust Klein and Whitley to take care of her. She’ll be fine and safe here.”

“I know, I know,” Ruby shut her eyes and nodded her head, sighing as she overlapped Weiss’ hand with her own, giving it a strong squeeze. She didn’t like shutting her eyes now. Everytime she did, she saw-

_“Penny! I can’t- You can snap out of it-”_

_“No! I can’t! I need you to- **n̵̢͔͚̓͒͝e̴͙͌̄̕ę̶͚̿̕d̴̙̓͑ ̶̻̦̉ẗ̶͖̳́̒͛o̵̰̚̕ ̵͈͍͊̐g̷̗̏e̸̺̬̣͘ţ̷̾ ̵̜͂̈́͊t̸̮͘̕͝ö̸̽͜͠ ̶̢̬̥͋̈t̷̢̗̃̈̔h̴̿̌͜ẽ̸̦͙͌̚ ̴͎̉̃͑v̴͓͔̼̈́a̷̟̱̤̐̾ȕ̵͍͝l̷̡̦̝̋̀t̶̺͉̀.̸̛̗̾̋ ̷̮͆̑͝Y̴̞̭̱͗̿ǒ̸̙͇̑̐u̵͕͍̐̓̕’̴͓̑̌͗ŗ̸̛̟͔̅̚è̴̥͚ ̵͙̐̆͜͝in my wAY!-** I don’t want to fight you anymore! Please, Ruby! I can’t control myself! I need ̶͎͓͐̇̂͜t̴̢͓̎ǫ̷͉̦̾̉ ̴͉͘͜ **get to the Relic-** RUBY!”_

Ruby eyes opened a sliver, exhaustion and frustration burning along with that painful soreness from being awake for so many hours. She did not look up, but instead let her gaze glide across the cold, blue tile floor of the room, trying to ignore the black boots that dangled limply in front of four chair legs in front of her.

After they had successfully hit the switch, Ruby was too beside herself to help. Weiss had taken charge and helped Klein and Whitley carry Penny’s still body out of the entrance hall. Blake had stayed with Ruby, holding her back when she tried to rush them, screaming in protest of where they were bringing her.

_“She’s not a DOLL! She’s a real girl! She’s REAL! She deserves a real bed and-”_

“I still think she deserves a real bed,” Ruby sighed again, “Even though she’s made of metal, if I was sleeping in a wooden chair for weeks, my butt would hurt.”

Weiss’ heart lightened a bit when she saw the slight smile on Ruby’s face. It was weak, but it was there.

“She will get a real bed, I promise. We just need to hide her here until General Ironwood stops trying to hunt her down. And sometimes-”

“The best hiding place is one in plain sight. I know, I know. I just… I don’t like it.”

“I know, I’m sorry. If you want,” Weiss’ hand slipped away as she began to walk across the room, her shoes clicking as she crossed the cold marble, “You can help pick out which doll she gets to hold? So when she wakes up, she won’t be so lonely.”

Weiss stood by a window covered in porcelain dolls. The room was lined floor to ceiling with shelves of dolls, some still in boxes, others sewn and stuffed. It was a bit frightening when she first walked in, but she had quickly pushed it out of mind when she saw Penny seated in the center of all of them. Standing up from her kneeling position, Ruby joined Weiss by the window and stared down at the rows of dolls. Weiss herself was holding a curly blonde haired one wearing a frilly blue dress.

_Very Weiss-like,_ Ruby thought, a smirk forming for a moment before it flattened back into a neutral expression as she eyed over the different faces and hairstyles, “I could leave a note with it. Something for Penny when she wakes up. Would Klein know to take the doll when they move her into a different room?”

“I’ll make sure he knows everything. I promise.”

Ruby nodded, her eyes glazing over as she started to look along the shelves to her left, beginning to circle the room until she spotted a doll on one of the top shelves, close to the ceiling. Weiss walked over and hugged herself as she followed Ruby’s eyes up.

“That one?”

“Yeah. Can I see it?”

“It’s a bit high up, but there should be a step stool or ladder in the closet around here. Just give me a moment.”

Ruby watched her walk past one of the grand bureaus to a white, wooden door leading to a walk-in closet. As she pulled the door open, Ruby craned her head to see inside.

“More dolls in there?”

“Yup. _More dolls._ I must look like a spoiled rich girl after letting you see all this, right?”

“You always look like a spoiled rich girl,” Ruby rolled her eyes.

_“Hey!”_ Weiss’ voice was muffled but the indignant squawk still made its way to Ruby, who laughed.

Weiss re-entered with the step ladder, and easily climbed up to select the doll Ruby had been looking at.

“This one, right?”

“That’s the one.”

Weiss handed it to her before stepping down. She went to fold the ladder up and put it away, talking easily while she did. For her heart at least, it helped to dissolve the tension and emotions swirling about in the room.

“Not all of these dolls belong to me. I’m not _that_ spoiled that Father and Mother would buy me this much. This is less of a playroom anyway and more of a collection. Some are Winter’s, but most of them belong to my mother, I think. Apparently my grandfather was the one who started collecting them for her.”

She stepped back into the room, her heels clicking all the way as she did, “I always thought it was strange, but apparently he felt so much guilt for being away from his family for so long that he showered my mother in these gifts. Although she was much too old for them, so that’s why they piled up in this unofficial ‘doll room.’”

Ruby was silent. She was staring down at the doll. It had black, medium length hair with a big pink bow on the back of it’s head.

“Ruby? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” she pressed a hand to her temple and sighed, “It’s stupid I know, but I was just thinking…”

“Whatever you’re thinking isn’t stupid. I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like that.”

“I know, I know. I’m supposed to be the leader, right? Gotta have confidence,” she waved her fingers in mock excitement, and Weiss’ expression soured, “I was just thinking how foolish it is for us to be here.”

“What do you mean? Ruby, you can’t be thinking that after all this time, that the fight against Salem-”

“Not about Salem. I… I _know_ we’re doing the right thing with that but… right now. We’re wasting time, standing here doing _this-”_ she gestured to the doll in her one hand, “-thing. We could be on our way out of here already, saving lives, but instead I’m making us all wait as we tuck Penny away.”

“It’s not stupid,” Weiss moved forward, hovering just beside Ruby so she could lean close and see her face, “We waited until Nora was awake before getting ready to move out, and when we got separated after Beacon, you waited for Yang, right?”

“I didn’t wait. I left without her.”

“But not right away, right? You took a few days. You had to take a breather, you had to contact Jaune and the others before you moved out. Preparation is important, Ruby.”

She reached out and grabbed the other side of the doll, the two of them holding it in their hands.

“No one will fault you for needing a break every once in a while. We can’t think about the lives that were lost before we knew anything. And lives _may_ be lost every minute elsewhere while we’re focused on dealing with Salem, but, we can’t think like that.”

Weiss leaned in again so she was right in front of Ruby’s face, forcing the other girl to look at her.

“Now, is this the doll you want, or am I going to have to haul the step ladder out here again?”

Ruby laughed and wiped her eyes, “No, no. This one is fine. Let me just write something and then I’ll give it to her. You shouldn’t have been so hurried to put the ladder away anyway, if I _did_ change my mind.”

Weiss smiled, “I’ll call Klein and the others.”

* * *

Ruby smoothed out the fabric of the light green skirt as she set the doll down on Penny’s lap, folding the girl’s hands delicately around it. When she was done, she stepped back, and watched as Klein and Whitley began to fill in the space around and in front of Penny with the hundreds of dolls. Like a floral arrangement, they were placed all around her, hiding her amongst the hundreds of porcelain and hand painted faces. The only difference between them was that all of the dolls’ eyes were opened, but Penny’s were shut closed.

“Are you ready to go?” Weiss asked. Ruby nodded.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“She’ll come back, I promise. Once things calm down and we can get a hold of Dr. Polendina, he’ll fix her and you’ll get to see her again.”

“We might already be gone from Atlas by then. If Salem pulls back and we have to get the other relics-”

“Then we’ll see her again at the end of everything. She’ll be safe here, and if she wakes up, she’s got your note to know what’s going on. She’ll come find you, I’m sure of it.”

Ruby shrugged, “Yeah. I guess… You’re right. Let’s go.”

Ruby followed Weiss towards the door, letting the other go first as they made their way to meet up with Blake and May and board their airship to go to the frontlines. Klein and Whitley were still piecing together the arrangement around Penny, but Ruby stopped with her hand on the doorframe, looking back at the girl drowning in dolls.

She was sleeping.

Ruby walked out the door.

* * *

_TO PENNY:_

_IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. SEE YOU AGAIN SOON._

_FROM,_

_RUBY_

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is very Mad Father-esque, but the idea that first came to me was instead of "killing" Penny again, they just disable her. Although it's not the wisest course of action with her being the Winter Maiden and having the ability to save lives, if she's not emotionally read to handle that responsibility and is being hacked where she's going to go against her own will, I prefer the idea of the characters putting her in a dormant state until things blow over. So far, I am enjoying every episode of Volume 8, and so I am very excited to see wherever the writers take the show, this was just my take on what might happen if Penny ends up fighting Ruby in her hacked state. (Although I didn't have time to write a full fight scene, so I gave you the aftermath). I hope you enjoyed!


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